- April, 30, 2026
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The first time Ella Guertin ‘29 crossed the Boston Marathon finish line was when she was just eight years old. As a child living with a rare liver disease, she was lifted over the barricade by her parents to join the runner completing the race in her honor.
This spring, she returned to Boylston Street - not as the child being cheered for - but as a Curry College nursing student running the Boston Marathon for the same organization that once ran for her.
Diagnosed with Biliary Atresia at birth, Ella spent much of her childhood in and out of hospitals, surrounded by doctors, nurses, and uncertainty. At just eight weeks old, she underwent an emergency kasi procedure to reconstruct her bile ducts, and has lived with the effects of this disease ever since.
When Ella was six, a woman named Britany McDonnell heard her story and decided to run the Boston Marathon on her behalf to raise money for the American Liver Foundation.
“Britany ran for me for three consecutive years, two of which I got to cross the finish line with her,” Ella said. “My family became a huge part of her fundraising effort, and she became a lifelong friend and a huge inspiration to me.”
For years, Ella watched Britany run in her honor, joining her at the finish line and attending race weekend events where she met other runners, patients, and families connected by liver disease. And while hospital visits became a part of her everyday life, so did something else: a deep admiration for the nurses and care teams who helped her through it.
“Growing up with hospital visits and so many doctors’ appointments, I came to love the medical environment,” she said. “I know I wouldn’t be here without all of the nurses that helped me, and I want to give back to those who helped me and help others.” And so, Ella decided to become a nurse.
Now a first-year student in Curry’s nursing program, Ella says the path feels personal in every way. At Curry, she found the opportunity to pursue the career she had envisioned since childhood, and the chance to turn her own experience as a patient into a future built around passionate care for others. As a CNA at a nursing home and a home health aide for a young girl with kidney disease, Ella sees firsthand how her own experiences as a patient informs the care she gives.
“I am caring, empathetic, kind, compassionate, and a good listener,” she said. “Especially toward people who are sick, because I know what it feels like to be in their shoes.” She often shares her story with the young girl she cares for, hoping to be a source of encouragement and strength.
“I try to inspire her to be strong and brave, even with all she is going through…I try to be someone she can look up to who is different, like her,” she said—a perspective she learned long ago from when Britany ran the Marathon in her honor.
For Ella, running the Marathon was about far more than reaching the finish line. It was about stepping into a role that once belonged to someone else, and carrying it forward…making the experience a true full circle moment.
“That little girl with liver disease who once had someone run for her is now healthy enough and fortunate enough to be here and cross the finish line herself,” she said.
In the process, Ella raised more than $13,000 for the American Liver Foundation, finishing among the top five fundraisers on her team and helping support patients and families navigating liver disease today.
“Every day it soaks in more and more that I achieved one of the biggest dreams I had besides becoming a nurse,” she said. “Running the Boston Marathon in the city that has shaped so much of my story meant everything to me. Every day I just want to go back to that moment. I was so happy.”
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